The Puppies of Terra

by Thomas M. Disch

Ever since the alien Masters had taken control, domesticating mankind with their energy-technology and the all-powerful mental Leash, the human condition had changed from toil and trouble to Total Wish Fulfillment. Only the Dingoes, the obstinate ones who resisted the Masters' Leash, weren't invited to the cosmic party. Poor Dingoes!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Dystopia, American, Science Fiction Fantasy

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Poet and cynic, Thomas M. Disch brought to the sf of the New Wave a camp sensibility and a sardonicism that too much sf had lacked. His sf novels include Camp Concentration, with its colony of prisoners mutated into super-intelligence by the bacteria that will in due course kill them horribly, and On Wings of Song, in which many of the brightest and best have left their bodies for what may be genuine, or entirely illusory, astral flight and his hero has to survive until his lover comes back to him; both are stunningly original books and both are among sf's more accomplishedly bitter-sweet works.

In later years, Disch had turned to ironically moralized horror novels like The Businessman, The MD, The Priest and The Sub in which the nightmare of American suburbia is satirized through the terrible things that happen when the magical gives people the chance to do what they really really want. Perhaps Thomas M. Disch's best known work, though, is The Brave Little Toaster, a reworking of the Brothers Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" featuring wornout domestic appliances -- what was written as a satire on sentimentality became a successful children's animated musical.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Puppies of Terra (AKA Mankind Under the Leash) is an early Disch novel, a New Wave, black comedy, dystopian satire with some really funny bits. It's not one of his most memorable works (except maybe for having some really bad covers), but it was a fun mid-'60's romp. It's told in the first person by White Fang, after most of humankind has settled into a life of domesticity as pets of the alien overlords who took over some sixty years ago. Watch out for the dingoes.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like everything I've read from Disch, it's really funny, depressing, clever, bizarre, occasionally profound, and absolutely unknown. Don't judge the book by the Altered Beasts cover, this is dystopian slap-stick at its very best. Disch tends to (pretty blatantly) hint at various literary and cultural inspirations in his works, and this one is straight-up Nikolai Gogol, the patronizing saint of the helplessly inept. So if you like reading about a bunch of dandy, mediocre, sheltered and delusional idiots trying to outwit a cult of unkempt and stupid revolutionaries armed with cattle-prods, in a land that the gods have completely abandoned, then I'm pretty sure I couldn't recommend a better book.

[Manny · Rating 2 out of 5]

A shaggy dog story. You were warned.

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 4 out of 5]

My name is White Fang, though of course that is not really my name. At least not any more. My name is really Dennis White, now. I like the old name better; it is more in keeping with the image I have of myself. But perhaps such an attitude is just a hangover from the time I was a pet. Some people would say that once you've been a pet, once you've grown used to the Leash, you're never quite human again- in the sense of being free. I don't know about that. Of course, it is more fun to be Leashed, but one can learn not to want it so badly. I did. And this, in one sense, is the story of how I did it.

It is sixty-seven years since earth was invaded by aliens, and two generations of men have been kept as pets in the Masters' kennels, on earth and throughout the solar system. The kennels are campuses where pets are raised and educated in lovely surroundings, and bred by the Masters' who want to improve their pets. Outside the kennels the dingoes, human beings who refused to become pets or were rejected as unsuitable, try to keep things going. The Masters do not have bodies, and appear to be some kind of electromagnetic beings. One of their first acts after the invasion was to take over all electrical generation, and they love auroras and flock to earth when a good display is expected, but when an unusual surge of sun-spot activity knocks the Masters out temporarily it gives the Dingoes a chance to fight back and try to wrest control of Earth back from the aliens.

I liked how this book was written in the form of the memoirs of White Fang, who was born and bought up in the kennels of the Masters. He explains that however unacceptable such terms are nowadays, he must talk of pets and puppies and the Leash since that is how he thought of things at the time. White Fang and his brother Pluto received their names due to a vogue among the first generation of pets for calling their puppies after famous dogs.

The cover picture doesn't really fit the story. It features a dog standing on its hind-legs, brandishing the broken chain attached to the metal collar round its neck, and two wolves sitting in the background. As the pets of the story aren't dogs but men, it is symbolic of the human pets breaking the mental Leash that controls them, but it still doesn't really work, since most of the pets were freed from the Leash unwillingly and would have preferred to remain pets. During the story we only hear of a single ex-pet who plotted his own escape from the Masters and went Dingo.

[David Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Mankind Under the Leash" was the original, and better, title of this novella, in which benevolent invaders have domesticated humans as pets, except for the dingoes who remain wild. Told in the first person by a human pet named White Fang with a mock-David Copperfield tone, this is cute at times, but exceedingly slight. In short, kind of a dog.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a heck of a lot better than the somewhat misleading cover picture. There are no snarling anthropomorphic dogs; the 'puppies' are humans who have chosen a life of luxury and leisure as the pets of powerful aliens, as opposed to the wild Dingoes who maintain a crumbling society on Earth. What could have been an awful book is saved by the self-aware humour of the narrator, pampered, pedigreed White Fang. The book suffers a little from the overexpository 'I don't need to remind you, dear reader, of the events of 2037, but I will anyway' style so inevitable in sci-fi, but it was a pleasant read and made me feel I wouldn't mind tracking down the sequel, White Fang Goes Dingo.

Ah. The title kind of gives away the ending of this one, doesn't it?

[j · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moral of the story: A man cannot serve two masters, but he must serve a master? Irregardless, this is (to keep things simple) Disch's sophomore novel. Taken as a follow-up to The Genocides (rather than as a haphazard expansion of a short story called 'White Fang Goes Dingo') this is a truly disappointing drop in imagination and execution. While the initial premise is strong enough, Disch strings it along with unfulfilling (and sporadic) and plotting, and strange little tangents. Some of these tangents (an extended Gogol homage comes to mind) are fun, and some (a cosmic asteroid opera sequence) are obnoxious.

While this novel initially seems like something of a forefather to Emshwiller's The Mount (a superior, but also not stellar book), it loses most of its spark after the initial exposition. And then there's the whole denouement / deus ex machina / revelation of the rushed final fifteen or so pages: it doesn't work for me. Indeed, the posture of being ideologically vague (as it is) would come to fit more naturally in Disch's work as he fine-tuned his voice. The Genocides -- as cracking and phenomenal as it is -- is more straight-forward than either this or the books of Disch's "golden period" to follow. Most of The Puppies of Terra (a.k.a. Mankind Under the Leash) is bog-standard, not bold or ambitious enough to stack up against the best of what was happening in new wave at the time. There is only the slightest hint of an indication that Disch is going to very soon do the artistic deep-diving of a work like Camp Concentration -- here his willingness to abandon conventional plotting for these odd literary nods and bizarre flights of fancy.

[Jim Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Puppies of Terra belongs to a particular strain in literature of the late 60’s and early 70’s propagated by young, rebellious authors who loved to tear down what they saw as an archaic, destructive, and dim-witted society. The novel, which has some pretty big plot holes, generally succeeds with its mixture of humor and horror, as only Disch can dish out. Mankind has been turned into pets by energy beings who trade and breed them to create perfect physical specimens devoted to creating and appreciating art. Those whom they have rejected, the dingoes, remain on earth as savages, parodies of Upper Midwestern farmers (Disch seems to never tire of poking fun at his origins). The hero of the story, White Fang, is the son of the man who wrote a treatise on the superiority of pethood that resulted in mankind's acceptance of it. As White Fang slowly realizes that dingo-hood has its advantages, he figures out a way to free mankind. Disch is a misanthrope and feels mankind is doomed to its baser instincts, but The Puppies of Terra seems to accept that this is better suited for us than a misplaced, loftier evolution.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't help feeling that one of the major purposes of Disch's novels is to exhibit his cultural erudition. It actually seems that that was the SOLE purpose of his "Camp Concentration"; this one's a bit more restrained with its cultivated references. Disch is a show-off, frankly, and what little plot there is to the two novels of his I have read strikes me as a vehicle for making the reader aware of how much he knows; perhaps ashamed of working in an often-maligned genre he has to spew his sophistication at you so you don't make the mistake of thinking he's an uncouth hack. It's annoying.

[Brown Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite sci-fi stories. It's a lot of fun, if you enjoy cynical satire and opera. I see that some of Disch's work is now available as ebooks; I hope this one is released as well. I prefer it to his later, more earnest work. There can be great truth in play. Here Disch exercises his inner child, and reveals some truth.

[Jon Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started of quite amusing with a black comedy kind of feel too it. However all to soon descended into far-fetched adolescent silliness. Not his best!

[Ellis Wasend · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool concept, some good twists and turns. Very powerful ending, glad I tried this new author

[Stijn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Makes you think. His way if writing writing isn't always my style, though.

[The Poor Person's Book Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very fun smart pulp sci fi, like they just don’t make anymore

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little Young for me.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disch was one of the finest writers that SF has ever produced. His books tended to have very serious themes, e.g. Camp Concentration, but his writing style and careful thinking meant his books were always enjoyable. The Puppies of Terra (I prefer the name White Fang Goes Dingo) is a slight book by Disch's standards, but it is extremely well-written. This is a subtle story of alien invasion where the aliens Masters may as well be gods. They essentially enslave most of their mankind with their benevolence to the point that we are pets. However, a good many humans are still Dingoes. This novel recounts the story of how one pet, White Fang, helped the Earth to go Dingo. Disch being Disch, there are serious moments, but this is a short and entertaining romp!

[Clyde · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like much of Disch's work, Puppies has an odd, almost bizarre feel to it.
Powerful, almost god-like, aliens have taken over the earth. They think humans make good pets and most people accept that -- many happily. Call them the happy puppies.
There are some, however, who resist domestication. Call them the wild dingos. This is their story.
A quick and pretty interesting read. (Found recently in a used book store.)

[Rand]

Read an excerpt from the Alien Sex anthology. Check out the hott cover.

[Martin Bromirski · Rating 1 out of 5]

been reading for a while... at least halfway finished... not his best for sure... but not horrible. PASS on this and read The Genocides or The M.D. because they were fantastic.

[Tom Loock · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the worst covers in the history of SF.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Disch has been one of my favorites these last few months. This is probably my least favorite but funniest of the four I've read.

[Michael Gushue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aka White Fang Goes Dingo

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 2 out of 5]

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[Clete · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went in expecting just cheesy sci-fi and wound up immersed in another world that swept me away. Very entertaining. Not to mention, fiction saves the day in it, twice!